The Seventh Night (3 page)

Turning, I scanned the terminal once more with growing concern. We’d been on the ground for almost an hour, and there was still no sign of my father. When I’d last spoken with him on the phone to tell him my plans, he’d been adamant about meeting my plane. His voice had still contained that same sense of urgency I’d told Dr. Layton about.

“I need to see you right away, Christine, before someone else—Never mind. Just get here as quickly as you can. I’ve got a lot to tell you, decisions I’ve made that could greatly affect both our lives. You have to help me. You’re my only living blood relative.”

When I’d pressed him further about his plans, however,
he’d grown quiet, mysterious, and he’d hung up soon after, leaving me feeling strangely disquieted.

Giving the terminal one last glance, I shoved my suitcase against the wall near a pay phone, inserted a coin into the slot, and dialed the St. Pierre Hotel’s number. The operator who answered had a faint French accent.

“Christopher Greggory, please.”

“One moment.”

The pause lengthened until I wondered if I’d been disconnected. Listening impatiently to a recording of a steel band, I drummed my fingers on the metal shelf under the phone and worried about why my father hadn’t met my plane. Had he changed his mind about seeing me? Had he decided he didn’t want a relationship with me, after all?

The questions and mounting doubts gnawed at my insecurities. I was just about to hang up when the receiver clicked and someone came on the line.“

“Reid St. Pierre.”

I very nearly dropped the phone. The sound of his voice, so close and so intimate in my ear, stunned me. The deep, rich tones shook me to my toes. My throat tightened, my mouth went dry, and my fingers holding the receiver began to tremble. With those two words—that name—I’d stepped into a time capsule and reverted back to the shy, insecure eighteen-year-old I’d tried so hard to leave behind.

“Hello? Is anyone there?” His voice was edged with annoyance now.

I tried to gather my shattered poise. “I…I was holding for my…for Christopher Greggory.”

“He isn’t here at the moment. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Is he on his way to the airport?” I asked, wincing at the tremor in my voice. I bit my lip and tried to recall what Dr. Layton had told me. “You’re twenty-eight
years old, Christine…no longer the confused teenager you were at eighteen.”

Right. So why did I feel just as confused now by the mere sound of Reid St. Pierre’s voice?

“Why would he be on his way to the airport?” His tone was sharp, distinct and tinged with what might have been suspicion.

“Because he was supposed to meet me here an hour ago. If he’s not on his way, I’ll just grab a cab—”

Very quietly, he said, “Who is this?”

Definite suspicion this time. I lifted my chin in defiance. “This is Christine Greggory. His daughter.”

The pause that followed could only be called pregnant. I could almost feel the tension popping and crackling along the phone line. But when he spoke, his masculine voice revealed nothing but a mild curiosity. “Am I to understand that you’re here in Columbé?”

“Yes.”

“And Christopher was expecting you?”

“Yes. Didn’t he tell you?”

Dead silence met my question. Then he said softly, almost indifferently, “When were these…arrangements made?”

“Excuse me?”

“When did you last speak to Christopher?”

“Last night. Look, if he’s not there—”

“What time?” The question was quiet, but somehow I sensed a note of urgency behind it.

“I don’t know,” I answered, my tone vague. “It was late. Maybe nine or so, Chicago time. I’d had a teachers’ meeting and just gotten home—” My eyes rolled skyward. Obviously, he’d wanted that last bit of information like he wanted a hole in his head. I took a deep breath and tried again. “I don’t have his home phone number with me. Do you think there’s a chance he’s there?”

“No.”

The finality in his voice stopped me cold. Beneath the
cool questions, the suspicion, I heard another inflection in his voice that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. And for some reason, I experienced an unprecedented sense of foreboding.

I cleared my throat, trying to shake the feeling. “Obviously, we’ve somehow gotten our wires crossed. I’ll just catch a taxi, except…I’m not sure where to go. Do you think he’ll come back to the hotel, or should I go directly to the house?”

Another one of those pauses. I could almost hear his mental calculations:
What’s the fastest way to get rid of her?
“Just sit tight,” he said finally. “I’ll send a car for you.”

“You don’t have to do that.” The last thing I wanted was to feel indebted to Reid St. Pierre. “There are taxis all over the place here.”

“I’ll send a car.”

I had no trouble at all identifying the imperious note in his voice. It struck me suddenly that Reid St. Pierre was a man used to giving orders and having them obeyed, and he expected no less from me. The notion irritated me, but at the moment, I was hardly in a position to argue.

“All right,” I acquiesced. “I’ll wait. But do you have any idea where my father might be?”

This time I expected the pause. My fingers were already tapping an impatient staccato on the shelf, but he answered quickly, catching me off guard.

“We’ll talk about it when you get here.”

“Talk about wh—”

The phone clicked in my ear, leaving me with a dead receiver and a dreaded certainty that something was terribly wrong in paradise.

* * *

“Miss Greggory?”

I gazed up from where I was perched on the edge of my suitcase to find a young, smiling, dark face hovering
over me. A smile at last, I thought, feeling tremendous relief at the first hint of warmth—other than the climate—I’d glimpsed since arriving on the island.

“I’m Christine Greggory,” I answered, throwing back a smile that seemed to surprise him for a moment. I rose and offered him my hand. “You must be from the St. Pierre.”

“My name is Jean Marc.” He took my hand, but dropped it almost immediately. “This is all your luggage?” He nodded his head toward my suitcase.

“You won’t say that when you lift it,” I warned, but the weight of the thing seemed not to register when he picked it up. He moved with the kind of unaffected grace I would later come to associate with the people of Columbé, along with the beautiful café au lait complexion of the Creoles.

“This way, please,” he called over his shoulder, and again I caught the brilliant flash of a milk-white grin.

Outside, the heat and sultry humidity, even well after sunset, hit me with a shock, but the assault was a welcome one. April had been wet and cold in Chicago, with no more than a promise of spring. This was—I inhaled deeply the fragrant dusk air—this was indeed paradise.

I surveyed the surrounding scenery with one detailed sweep. Lushly verdant mountains aspired to touch a deepening sky still tinted pink and gold on the horizon. Flamboyant trees glistened like rubies in emerald green jungles, and bougainvillea plunged purple from walls and fences.

It was a scene profoundly beautiful, yet in the distance thunderheads rolled over the sea, a reminder of nature’s ambivalence, even in paradise.

We climbed into the car, and with a blast of our horn for the car that slipped in front of us, Jean Marc joined the free-for-all of vans, limos and dilapidated, overflowing buses heading for Port Royale and the outlying resorts.

The light faded as we drove, and a full moon rose over the sea. A few diamond-bright stars began to twinkle out among the clouds. My window was down and the night wind tickled through my hair, whipping it about my face like unruly strands of golden brown silk. I peeled it away and tucked it behind my ears, feeling my blood surge with excitement as lights from the city came into view.

Port Royale at dusk was a city cloaked in mystery. In the violet mist of twilight, the abject poverty was softened, filtered, masked by the fragrance of jasmine and cinnamon and the sea. Even the gaudy lights of the bars and clubs seemed to hold a rakish sort of charm, and it struck me anew that this city, this island paradise, was my father’s home. In just a short time, I would be seeing him again.

To say my feelings were mixed would be an understatement. For years I had felt nothing more for Christopher Greggory than resentment and hurt and a deep-rooted sense of betrayal. But after all was said and done, he was still my father. As he’d said, the only living blood relative I had left on this earth. Like it or not, we shared a bond, and that bond was what had brought me all this way.

But what of his other family? a nagging little voice reminded me. I’d never even met my stepsister, Angelique, and judging by Reid’s less than enthusiastic greeting on the phone, I felt safe to assume neither of them would welcome me with open arms.

I comforted myself with the knowledge that I was only here for spring break. What could happen in a week, in just seven short days?

My gaze lifted suddenly and I met Jean Marc’s in the rearview mirror. “How long have you worked at the St. Pierre?” I asked, trying to shake the disquieting notion that he’d been watching me.

“Not long,” he admitted with an open smile. “My
uncle has worked at the hotel for a long time, though. He got me the job. I’m lucky to be working. There aren’t many jobs on the island these days. I’m very grateful to Monsieur St. Pierre.”

“You mean Reid St. Pierre?”

“Of course. He’s the owner.”

“Then you must know my father, as well. He and Reid are partners.”

This seemed to come as some sort of revelation to Jean Marc. His dark eyes rounded as he watched me in the mirror. “I never see Monsieur Greggory at the hotel. I don’t know anything about partners,” he said with a shrug. “But I do know I take my orders from Monsieur St. Pierre. We all do.”

That I could believe, I thought in sudden annoyance. Even at the age of twenty-four, Reid St. Pierre’s arrogance and his abundance of self confidence had been intimidatingly apparent. I could well imagine what he would be like now, at thirty-four.

The image of an older Reid, more mature, more experienced, more
everything
left a peculiar weakness in the pit of my stomach. Telling myself that I, too, was older, wiser, more experienced did little to alleviate the feeling.

Jean Marc’s hand moved to adjust the rearview mirror, and with a jolt, I saw his ring for the first time. It was in the shape of a snake, very similar to the one the customs official had worn. Our eyes met again in the mirror, but this time I thought I sensed a wariness in his gaze, as though a shutter had been pulled down to close off the warmth.

“How much farther to the hotel?” I asked uneasily.

“Not far.”

“What’s it like?”

“Very luxurious. Only rich Americans can afford to stay there these days.”

There was the merest trace of resentment in his tone,
and I realized that I had been correct in my earlier assumption at the airport. The locals harbored a disdain for tourists, especially Americans. Our government’s involvement in their recent political strife had rankled and left a bitter aftertaste for the undesirable but necessary tourist trade. It was hardly an encouraging welcome.

On the edge of the city, traffic thinned. I could see the silhouette of mountains looming above the coastal road, and rounding a curve, we met the sea once more. As the road ascended, a dense fog rolled down the mountains to greet us, and mist curled and frothed like smoke in our headlights.

We picked up speed on the open road, but all at once, without warning, the car gave a violent jerk, shuddered, then died altogether. Jean Marc guided the car to the shoulder of the road and cut the lights.

Glancing out my window, I saw the tombstones of a cemetery rising out of the fog and glowing ghostly white in the misty darkness. Trying to conceal a faint premonition of horror, I leaned forward in alarm.

“What’s wrong with the car?”

Jean Marc gave a helpless little shrug and lifted his hands off the steering wheel in an apologetic gesture. “Out of gas.”

“Out of gas? You’re kidding!”

“We’re not far from Port Royale.” His face brightened. “I’ll walk back to my cousin’s garage, and he’ll bring me back with some gas.”

I reached for the door handle as I slung my purse strap over my arm. “I’ll go with you.”

His dark eyes widened in distress. “No, please! When Monsieur St. Pierre learns about this, he’ll be furious. But if I allowed you to walk all the way back to town, in the dark, I could lose my job. He was adamant that I was to take good care of you. Please, wait here. I won’t be long, I promise….”

In face of such earnest protests, I didn’t know what
to do. But Jean Marc did. He was already out of the car, still apologizing as he strode toward a copse of trees. “Besides,” he called over his shoulder. “I know a shortcut. I’ll be back in no time!”

“Wait a minute!” I was out of the car by this time, but I might as well have been shouting to the occupants of the graveyard for all the good I did. The mist had already swallowed Jean Marc.

I stood staring at the spot where he’d entered the jungle for a full half minute while my slow brain registered the fact that I had been deserted on a lonely road after dark. With the speed and impact of a bullet, the young woman’s comments at the airport came zooming back to me.

“They move by night.”

A finger of mist circled the antenna of the car, looking for the world like a snake coiling to strike. The image reminded me of the rings I’d seen today—first on the customs official, then on Jean Marc. Every memory now took on a new and more sinister proportion. I’d always considered myself reasonably brave and level-headed in emergencies, but standing on that lonely road beside a cemetery with both darkness and fog closing in, I felt more than one tremor of fear.

Damn.
What was I supposed to do now—besides panic? Wait here in the dark and hope to God that Jean Marc came back soon?

The thought crossed my mind that I might try and catch up with him, but glancing at the density of the mist and the jungle, I quickly abandoned that plan.